I did not! Though I've had a recent obsession with North Korea. Could be why...

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Not a surprise – it sounds like a nice place to vacation for a couple of weeks, away from advertisement, naked greed, and annoying people trying to sell things. You just lounge around Ryugyong-Kempinski for hours and days, drinking various drinks and smoking various smokes, meeting interesting people, and taking occasional strolls outside. Now I want to go too…

I had a recent dream where I was going through customs at Charles De Gaulle Airport. I had a passport in my hand, which I gave to the customs agent. At this point, I realized that I was wearing pajamas, had no luggage, wallet, or anything else.

As I was standing in the airport, feeling like an idiot, I realized that I needed shoes. Maria Sharapova grabbed my arm and said, "You don't look prepared." She told me she has a private plane about to leave for L.A., and that they could drop me off in San Francisco.

She pulled out shoes from her bag, gave them to me, and told me the pilots will take me to the plane. They were both huge guys that looked like thugs, and they were very drunk. I started getting very nervous about drunk guys flying me home and woke up.

Not a surprise – it sounds like a nice place to vacation for a couple of weeks, away from advertisement, naked greed, and annoying people trying to sell things. You just lounge around Ryugyong-Kempinski for hours and days, drinking various drinks and smoking various smokes, meeting interesting people, and taking occasional strolls outside. Now I want to go too…

Yesterday I dreamt that me and my twin sister ran through a very updated and heavily modernised version of the Pyongyang metro (which included a sporting goods store we ran through) to try and catch a train. Weirdly, we didn't have any government minders to spot our every move. It was all very weird, and what's weirder was that the people in the store were westerners.

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China use to make heavy use of minders. Now cities like Beijing have a sophisticated surveillance camera network, and watchers placed all over the city. The people in the store were monitoring you!

So it’s true that a well-trained highly skilled armed and uniformed security detail is provided by the authorities to visiting dignitaries free of charge? I am going to browse around the schedules and fares on the Air Koryo website right now. I bet those officers know a thing or two about good places to hang out around that chonu/chonsung subway terminal on your map.

So it’s true that a well-trained highly skilled armed and uniformed security detail is provided by the authorities to visiting dignitaries free of charge? I am going to browse around the schedules and fares on the Air Koryo website right now. I bet those officers know a thing or two about good places to hang out around that chonu/chonsung subway terminal on your map.

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A few years ago, a friend was assigned to an embassy in Beijing. He was told to explain to his family that they might come home and find someone at their computer, or going through their things. The proper response was to ignore this person, let them finish the job, and let them leave.

If it were me, I would ask the Chinese government agent if he wanted a beer. I would then ask him what he thought about North Korea.

A North Carolina man just unearthed his wedding ring he had lost 30+ years ago while gardening! Truly a "neverending band"!

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I recently watched a show where antiques were appraised on an American PBS channel. The show was from England, and there was a segment about people with metal detectors finding jewelry from as long as 1,000+ years ago.

There was one ring from the time of the Anglo Saxon arrival, found in a man's yard. I was surprised at the low appraisal. My thought was that I'd like to have that ring, just to imagine the history behind it.

A few years ago, a friend was assigned to an embassy in Beijing. He was told to explain to his family that they might come home and find someone at their computer, or going through their things. The proper response was to ignore this person, let them finish the job, and let them leave.

If it were me, I would ask the Chinese government agent if he wanted a beer. I would then ask him what he thought about North Korea.

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The summer vacation 2013 is shaping up pretty nicely so far. A week in Moscow, a week in Vladivostok, and next thing you know you’re on an Air Koryo plane to Pyongyang and there’s a jeep by the runway full of nice uniformed bilingual people eager to chat and drive you around town. Couple of months in Hokkaido hot springs and you’re ready to wrap it up and go home…

^^^Four years later (soon after hearing "Light My Fire"), I began my "sentence" in Tallahassee, a very big culture shock after living in Europe for 6 years. Thankfully, the town is very more progressive today!

^^^Four years later (soon after hearing "Light My Fire"), I began my "sentence" in Tallahassee, a very big culture shock after living in Europe for 6 years. Thankfully, the town is very more progressive today!

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I would have thought attending an American university in the late 1960s would have been very interesting. Someone once told me that Florida State University use to have more female than male students, which would have made things even more interesting.

Maybe the music and 1960s culture didn't make it to Florida. I think Jim Morrison was finally pardoned for the Miami charges a few years ago. I would like to go back in time and see some of the bands of that time.

I would have thought attending an American university in the late 1960s would have been very interesting. Someone once told me that Florida State University use to have more female than male students, which would have made things even more interesting.

Maybe the music and 1960s culture didn't make it to Florida. I think Jim Morrison was finally pardoned for the Miami charges a few years ago. I would like to go back in time and see some of the bands of that time.

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I was still in high school when I first arrived but played "hooky" every chance I got over on FSU campus...post-Kent State protests are a prime example. One of Joan Baez' on-stage quips from a FSU appearance sums it up..."This place is surprisingly hip!". We got more liberated as my college days progressed...I worked stage crew for a lot of early 70's acts (Allman Bros., Ike & Tina Turner, Fleetwood Mac b4 Nicks/Buckingham, Doobie Bros. to name a few). And, yeah, there was tons of skirt to chase!

Morrison's mug shot just triggered a lot of regressive memories from that era...while he was "disturbing the peace" in T-town, only a few hundred miles down Highway 90 lies the Mississippi Delta where civil-rights activists were murdered and buried in the muck.

I was still in high school when I first arrived but played "hooky" every chance I got over on FSU campus...post-Kent State protests are a prime example. One of Joan Baez' on-stage quips from a FSU appearance sums it up..."This place is surprisingly hip!". We got more liberated as my college days progressed...I worked stage crew for a lot of early 70's acts (Allman Bros., Ike & Tina Turner, Fleetwood Mac b4 Nicks/Buckingham, Doobie Bros. to name a few). And, yeah, there was tons of skirt to chase!

Morrison's mug shot just triggered a lot of regressive memories from that era...while he was "disturbing the peace" in T-town, only a few hundred miles down Highway 90 lies the Mississippi Delta where civil-rights activists were murdered and buried in the muck.

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The 1960s bush era seems like it was more fun than the 2000s Bush era in America. Was the bush era clipped during the Bush era?

Called the "embodiment of pure intellect," Albert Einstein has long been considered one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. During his life and since his death, people everywhere have wondered how one man could have possessed such genius.

Now, scientists may have uncovered a clue within the physicist's unusual brain.

The images of Einstein’s brain are published in Falk, Lepore & Noe 2012, (The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: a description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs, "Brain") and are reproduced here with permission from the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Silver Spring, Md.

According to a new study led by Florida State University evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk, "portions of Einstein’s brain have been found to be unlike those of most people and could be related to his extraordinary cognitive abilities."

"Certain things are normal," Falk told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. "Brain size is normal. Overall shape is asymmetrical, and that is normal. What is unusual is the complexity and convolution in the various parts of the brain."

According to a written statement issued by the university, the study, published Nov. 16 in the journal "Brain," reveals the description of Einstein's entire cerebral cortex. To do this, Falk and her colleagues examined 14 recently uncovered photographs of Einstein's brain -- photos that, Falk said, were difficult to obtain.

When Einstein died in 1955, his brain was removed by Thomas Harvey, a doctor at the hospital where the physicist died, NPR notes. It is likely that Harvey never got permission to remove the brain, but as author Brian Burrell writes in "Postcards from the Brain Museum," the doctor got a posthumous stamp of approval from Einstein's son.

Harvey had said that he intended to study the brain, or at the very least, to find other scientists to do so -- something that was never satisfactorily achieved in the doctor's lifetime.

Still, scientists are now able to study Einstein's brain thanks to a number of photos and specimen slides that Harvey had prepared of the organ. The brain, which was photographed from multiple angles, also has been sectioned into 240 blocks from which histological slides were made.

As the FSU statement notes, most of the photographs, blocks and slides were lost from public sight for more than 55 years; fortunately, a number of them have been recently rediscovered and some can now be found at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

It was with a few of these images, 14 to be exact, that Falk and her colleagues were able to take a closer look at Einstein's brain.

What they discovered was astonishing.

“Although the overall size and asymmetrical shape of Einstein’s brain were normal, the prefrontal, somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices were extraordinary,” said Falk, who compared the organ to 85 other human brains already described in the scientific literature. “These may have provided the neurological underpinnings for some of his visuospatial and mathematical abilities.”

For instance, Falk explained to The Huffington Post, parts of Einstein's frontal lobe are "extra convoluted," his parietal lobes are in some parts "extraordinarily asymmetrical," and his primary somatosensory and motor cortices near the regions that typically represent face and tongue are "greatly expanded in the left hemisphere."

"I was blown away," she said.

Albert Galaburda, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Science magazine that "what's great about this paper is that it puts down…the entire anatomy of Einstein's brain in great detail." But, he added, the study raises "very important questions for which we don't have an answer."

"Among them are whether Einstein started off with a special brain that predisposed him to be a great physicist, or whether doing great physics caused certain parts of his brain to expand. Einstein's genius, Galaburda says, was probably due to 'some combination of a special brain and the environment he lived in,'" the magazine continues.

Interest in Einstein's brain is by no means a new phenomenon.

As Burrell writes, "the brain of Albert Einstein has acquired a notoriety out of all proportion to its value as an anatomical specimen."

In 1999, scientists at Ontario's McMaster University were able to compare the shape and size of Einstein's brain with those of about 90 people with average intelligence, according to the BBC. The researchers, who used a few of Harvey's other photographs, found at the time that at least "one area of his brain was significantly different than most people's."

Years later, Falk took her first stab at analyzing Einstein's brain and at the time, had claimed to have identified "a number of previously unrecognized unusual features" of the organ, Science magazine wrote in 2009.

As USA Today reports, the locations of some chunks of Einstein's brain are still unknown, so "the photos of the full, pre-dissected brain are a real find."

The door is now open for other scientists to learn more about the legendary physicist's brain.

"This is a starting place," Falk told The Huffington Post. "In this study, we [tried to set] the groundwork by thoroughly describing the brain as much as we can, interpreting our findings and suggesting hypotheses for other scientists who will, I'm sure, will want to look at these slides in the future."

For instance, Falk said, scientists could look at "brains of gifted people and compare them to Einstein's."

"There's a revolution going on in neuroscience right now... and there is technology that can make these images more meaningful," she said. "We're still learning from Einstein, all these years after his death."

I almost got defeated by both the rotating sharpener (which had cuts where the knife got jammed and thus kicked back) and wild boar, which was frozen. Got it done though, and tomorrow there will be some serious cheffing.

The 1960s bush era seems like it was more fun than the 2000s Bush era in America. Was the bush era clipped during the Bush era?

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The late 60's/early 70's was a Busch era for me...in the 2000's Bush era I gravitated more towards Yuengling. In the 60's/70's I and my girlfriends leaned towards a more natural lifestyle...ergo a certain bushiness was prevalent. Nowadays, the razor is a friend of ours!

I almost got defeated by both the rotating sharpener (which had cuts where the knife got jammed and thus kicked back) and wild boar, which was frozen. Got it done though, and tomorrow there will be some serious cheffing.

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"Cheffing" is a new English word for me. I did a search, and see I was missing a word in my English vocabulary.

Danes and Swedes have the best English language skills of any countries where English is not the native language, in my opinion. I think, in general, Danes are more fluent in English than Swedes, but Mr. Strongo is more fluent in English than most Danes, and probably more fluent than 99% of people where English is the primary language.

In Denmark, I am told, everyone started learning English soon after World War II, under the influence of Americans. For a long time, kids have grown up watching American television shows and movies.

I almost got defeated by both the rotating sharpener (which had cuts where the knife got jammed and thus kicked back) and wild boar, which was frozen. Got it done though, and tomorrow there will be some serious cheffing.

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That's the problem with cheffing in Sweden, the way I see it - you can't just go into the mountains and secure a wild piglet for a nice fresh shashlyk dinner.

"Cheffing" is a new English word for me. I did a search, and see I was missing a word in my English vocabulary.

Danes and Swedes have the best English language skills of any countries where English is not the native language, in my opinion. I think, in general, Danes are more fluent in English than Swedes, but Mr. Strongo is more fluent in English than most Danes, and probably more fluent than 99% of people where English is the primary language.

In Denmark, I am told, everyone started learning English soon after World War II, under the influence of Americans. For a long time, kids have grown up watching American television shows and movies.

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There is something about Danes and English. Every Dane I've ever been forced to speak English to have had an impeccable grasp of the language, and it's almost kind of ridiculous how well they speak it.

^^^Don't leave the Dutch out of this English fluency conversation...while in Alkmaar for their famous Dutch cheese market, I flagged down a police officer for directions and needlessly asked him if he spoke English. His grammar and accent were both impeccable!

The People's Daily piece quoted The Onion's praise of the NK leader: 'Kim made this newspaper’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.' Photograph: Kns/AFP/Getty Images

The online version of China's Communist party newspaper has hailed a report by The Onion naming North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as the sexiest man alive – not realising it is satire.

The People's Daily ran a 55-page photo spread on its website in a tribute to the leader, under the headline North Korea's top leader named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012.

The People's Daily cited the Onion as saying: "Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile."Photos with the story include Kim on horseback squinting into the light, Kim waving towards a military parade, Kim wearing sunglasses and smiling, and touring a facility with his wife.

It is not the first time a state-run Chinese newspaper has fallen for a fictional report by The Onion. In 2002, the Beijing Evening News, one of the capital city's biggest tabloids at the time, published as news the fictional account that the US Congress wanted a new building and that it might leave Washington. The Onion article was a deadpan spoof of the way sports teams threaten to leave cities in order to get new stadiums.

The People's Daily piece quoted The Onion's praise of the NK leader: 'Kim made this newspaper’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.' Photograph: Kns/AFP/Getty Images

North Korea's top leader named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012.

The People's Daily cited the Onion as saying: "Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.",..

Forget the claims of Madison Avenue & Mexico City:
THIS is truly "The World's Most Interesting Man"

back on-topc (useless info.): The minimum age for marriage in the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea (PDRK or 'PRK' for short) ;-) is 29 for guys and 27 for the babes in order to fulfill military and other obligations. Say what you want about the country with the Texaco gas station flag, when it comes to parades, no one can hold a candle to the good ol' PDRK. If "I Love a Parade!" is your thing, the PDRK is clearly a must-go when it comes to planning your next vacation. Me? Been there, done that, and believe me "The People's Amusement Park" blows away 6-Flags and Disney World.

Left - Middle - Right (L to R)

"Nooo way Kyung-Soon!...your were 'in full congress' with the legendary Russian Agent Bulgakov??!! Tell me the truth!!!..did you really??..."

Kyung Soon: * murmuring * ... "uh hummm.....yessssss...."

* giggling * "Tell us!...is it TRUE??....about him??"

Kyung-Soon: *swoon* "Sssh!!..yess...he is even greater than his legend.....my kimchi will never be the same again.."

Pickled herring can be a very powerful zakuska tool in combination with fresh borodinsky bread. As a little boy, I used to think that herring was naturally salty. Ethnic tensions escalated in Moscow in the 90s when rumours spread that Vietnamese migrants all over the city were frying fresh herrings, rather than consuming them pickled and chilled.

Pickled herring can be a very powerful zakuska tool in combination with fresh borodinsky bread. As a little boy, I used to think that herring was naturally salty. Ethnic tensions escalated in Moscow in the 90s when rumours spread that Vietnamese migrants all over the city were frying fresh herrings, rather then consuming them pickled and chilled.

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Maksim Syrnikov is an exacting researcher: if he wants to discover how whitebait was fished in the northwestern Belozero region for centuries, he spends days out in the boats with the local fishermen. He was appalled when the editors of one of his cookbooks, unable to find whitebait in Moscow, substituted dried Chinese anchovies in a photograph, and he is still deeply embarrassed about it. As a self-appointed guardian of authentic Russian fare, Syrnikov has a problem: Russians don’t hold Russian food in particularly high esteem. When they eat out, they favor more exotic cuisines, like Italian or Japanese. The tendency to find foreign food more desirable is a prejudice that goes back centuries—to a time when the Russian aristocracy spoke French, not Russian—and it was exacerbated by the humiliating end of the Cold War and Russia’s subsequent opening to the West. Russian food is pooh-poohed as unhealthy and unsophisticated. Among the many things that annoy Syrnikov is the fact that a good number of the despised Russian dishes aren’t even Russian. “I did an informal survey of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and asked them, ‘Name some traditional Russian dishes,’ ” Syrnikov said. “What they named was horrible: borscht, which is Ukrainian, and potatoes, which are an American plant.” He insists that real Russian food contained no potatoes, no tomatoes, few beets, and little meat. Instead, there were a lot of grains, fish, and dairy, as well as honey, cucumbers, turnips, cabbage, apples, and the produce of Russia’s vast forests—mushrooms and berries. Because of the climate, little of this was eaten fresh; it was salted, pickled, or dried for the long winter. Most of Russia ate this way until the twentieth century. By exploring the Russian food that existed before potatoes, Syrnikov hopes to help Russians reacquaint themselves with the country’s agrarian roots, torn up during seven decades of Soviet rule, and to convince them that their national cuisine can be just as flavorful as anything they might find in a sushi bar. He spends his time travelling through the countryside in search of old recipes, trying them himself, and blogging about his experiences. He has written four books, including an encyclopedia of Russian cuisine and a cookbook that ties food to the fasts and feasts of the Russian Orthodox calendar. He makes frequent television appearances and conducts master classes all over the country, instructing everyone from restaurant chefs to hobby cooks in the ways of the Russian peasant kitchen.http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/16/120416fa_fact_ioffe

When traversing the Baltic Sea, a Swedish smörgåsbord can be enjoyable, even on a Finnish ship.

Yes, this is a familiar phenomenon, but I submit that it has nothing to do with food, but issues of race and social class rather. The city is full of “Italian” and “Japanese” restaurants with nauseating and expensive food. You can have far superior Russian or Uzbek food at 1/10 the price at the corner of any market, but the social phenomenon described in the article has little to do with food, right…

Yes, this is a familiar phenomenon, but I submit that it has nothing to do with food, but issues of race and social class rather. The city is full of “Italian” and “Japanese” restaurants with nauseating and expensive food. You can have far superior Russian or Uzbek food at 1/10 the price at the corner of any market, but the social phenomenon described in the article has little to do with food, right…

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In my opinion, people in Russia, especially Moscow, have been far too concerned with brands and trends since the early 1990s. Instead of choosing what they like, too many people make choices based on what they perceive as what they should like.

This is true everywhere, but there seems to be an element of insecurity in Russia that makes people more apt to choose the trendy brands, clothes, or restaurants, instead of making an independent evaluation.

Politiets Efterretningstjeneste, an incompetent agency of fools. Did they get it right this time?

Professor given five-month sentence for spying

Peter Stanners
May 31, 2012 - 15:30

A Finnish university professor has been sentenced to five months in prison for spying following a trial held behind closed doors, from which even the verdict was not released.

Timo Kivimäki, 49, a professor of international politics at Copenhagen, did not expect to be found guilty under the ‘mild’ anti-spy legislation.

”I was expecting to be let off,” Kivimäki told Ekstra Bladet outside the court. “[The domestic intelligence agency] PET alleges that the diplomats I was in touch with were spies. I just thought they were ordinary diplomats.”

Several Russian diplomats left Denmark after the start of the spy case, and according to Ekstra Bladet, Kivimäki’s lawyer, Anders Nemeth, had attempted to have them return to act as witnesses.

Nemeth would not comment on this claim however.

According to the press release from the city court in Glostrup, Kivimäki was found guilty of handing over documents, including the CVs of four employees at the Center for Military Studies, to Russian diplomats during his many meetings with them between 2002 and 2010.

Kivimäki was also found guilty of attempting to hand over a list of student names along with the CV of the head of the Center for Military Studies. He was found with these documents in his possession when he was arrested in September 2010.

The court implemented so-called ‘double-closed doors’ in order to protect Denmark’s relationship with Russia after recommendations from both the Justice and Foreign Ministries.

The case’s secrecy has now been appealed to the Supreme Court, whose ruling is expected to set a precedent in future spy trials.

Kivimäki was critical of the conviction and questioned PET's agenda.

“The court has believed PET’s paranoia,” Kivimäki told Ekstra Bladet. “The intelligence agency wants the population to believe that the country is full of spies and terrorists so PET can get more resources.”

Kivimäki is a Finnish citizen who has lived in Copenhagen since 1999. According to the press release from the court, his research at Copenhagen University focused on establishing peaceful methods for resolving conflicts.

In my opinion, people in Russia, especially Moscow, have been far too concerned with brands and trends since the early 1990s. Instead of choosing what they like, too many people make choices based on what they perceive as what they should like.

This is true everywhere, but there seems to be an element of insecurity in Russia that makes people more apt to choose the trendy brands, clothes, or restaurants, instead of making an independent evaluation.

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I agree with your observations – appearances have been playing a far greater role in that city than in any other melting pot of the world perhaps. There is a wide range of social strata and immense pressure on the people in the middle to assert their association with the London-schooling Greek-vacationing class rather than the penniless thousands that come off the trains from Minsk and Dushanbe every day.